by Sarah Zettel
She rose. “Very good, my Lord Colan. Now we will talk.” She stood, holding out her hand. Colan took it and bowed over it with careful courtesy. Morgaine smiled, and led him away, and Colan followed.
Chapter Six
The funeral for Lord Kenan was held three days after his death. It took that long for the grave to be dug in the half-frozen earth and stone. Men brought their picks from the tinning. They worked with a will at the unyielding ground to make a place where their steward could be laid to rest. In all that time, no word of Colan came by land or water.
The bier bearing Lord Kenan’s shrouded corpse, along with his sword and shield and the many rings he had won in his life, was lowered into the earth in the early, grey morning. The clouds hung heavy overhead. The wind from the sea carried the smell of salt so strongly they might have stood on the shore. As Bishop Austell read the book over the grave, Laurel lift her head and turned her face toward the sea wind. Distracted in her grief, Lynet could only wonder bitterly what the winds told Laurel this time and what fresh disaster would come of it.
All of Cambryn came to stand beside them, to hear the blessed words and say their reverent farewells. All but Colan, and Captain Hale. Hale had gone to Port Yzack to find a ship that would sail Lynet and her small party of protectors up the channel and into Arthur’s lands.
Bishop Austell would go with her, and Hale’s son, Lock, along with three other men that Lock and his father chose. Meg had wanted to come to wait on her, saying Lynet could not go to the great court without at least one woman in her train, but Lynet had insisted Meg stay at Laurel’s side.
“I am going to safety,” she told Meg. “Laurel stays in danger. It is she who needs all our friends about her.”
She did not say it was vital that they travel lightly. Meg was many things, but she was no horsewoman. When they came to shore and to the roads again, and they would have to ride hard and fast. Speed was everything. A great show had been made by Mesek and Peran to each send out one man to tell their folk what had happened, and how they would be waiting at Cambryn for the queen’s arrival. But who could know what messages were passed in the dark, and what secret instructions each man carried in his heart. Already some of Cambryn’s folk had begun to quietly slip away. They’d take their chances in the wilderness, or with distant family under a stranger’s protection rather than trust that Lord Kenan’s daughters could hold Cambryn for even a handful of days.
Bishop Austell was saying the amens. As he closed the great Book, his eyes shone with the tears he held back. Lynet crossed herself and knelt for the final blessing, and when it came, she crossed herself again. She followed Laurel to the grave’s ragged edge, and tossed her share of clay and stones onto her father’s shrouded form. It was too early in the year for blossoms yet, so they also threw down holly branches, bright green and shining to lie among the earth and the relics, and remind all that life was eternal.
Eternal. But not on this earth. Given the damage we do, I suppose it is better that way.
The wind blew hard. For a moment, Lynet thought she smelled spring in it. But then that too was gone, and she turned with her sister from their father’s grave.
The funeral breakfast had been as lavish as they could manage. Laurel and Jorey had already been in conference, Lynet knew. If a war was to come, stores would be the main concern. They had to replenish the cellars, one way or the other. Which would mean sending out yet more men and praying they would return back in time.
She and Laurel both had passed the feast withdrawn in their own thoughts, eating little, saying less. Fortunately as they were grieving, this was expected of them. A funeral day was a holy and separate time, and it was tendered with respect by all present. Even Mesek and Peran shared the table peaceably. For now. Until Lynet and her party left, and the power shifted again.
Lynet stayed in her place as long as she could, but at last she could not stand anymore. She stood, made some excuse, and all but ran back to her own chamber. She closed the door, and stood there for a time trying to catch her breath, trying to swallow the tears that threatened to burst out yet again. No more. She was done. There was no time. They were to leave as soon as the meal was finished.
The last time she waited to leave her home it had been to make the day’s ride to Tintagel. The night before that adventure, though, she had eaten her dinner beside her father, and Colan had kept her company when she couldn’t sleep; singing, telling old stories, and re-reading Laurel’s letter that the traders had brought with them from Camelot.
This time there was only Laurel among her blood kin left beside her, and soon even Laurel would be too far away to reach. Lynet slumped onto the bed. Her feet already ached from cold and from standing so long, and her heart ached in anticipation of the loneliness to come. How will I do this without Laurel? She bowed her head into her hands.
As if summoned by the thought, Laurel pushed open their door. She carried a small wooden casket with her, and there was an unusual wry smile on her face. As the door swung shut behind her, Lynet glimpsed a man with a spear taking up station beside the door.
“Whose?” Lynet asked, flicking a finger toward the portal.
“Everyone’s.” Laurel replied as she crossed the room. “No one will trust the others, so I am to be followed by one of Peran’s men, one of Mesek’s, and one of ours. I am, however, given leave to speak in private with you for this one moment.” She set the casket carefully on the small table. It was plain and flat-lidded but bound in shining brass. “They are sending for more men, and for some women to watch me when they’re men cannot.”
An entire flock of uneasy thoughts followed this news. Would Mesek or Peran decide to use Laurel herself to obtain the power in Cambryn? There were ways to gain legitimacy for an ambitious man. A marriage, along with much else, could be forced. Even on Laurel.
“You should be the one to go,” said Lynet hoarsely. “They know you at Camelot. They will listen to a friend.”
“And that is why I must stay. They know me. I believe the queen cares for me. That will add fervor to the plea you must make.” Laurel’s jaw hardened and the light behind her eyes glittered brightly for a moment. “And I am the eldest, Lynet. I may speak with authority where you cannot.” She lowered her voice. “And in their eyes I am still a maid and unsullied. It will stay them from turning their hands to the worst, at least awhile.”
Lynet bowed her head. “Yes, of course.”
“We cannot refuse to speak of these things, Lynet, nor to pretend they do not affect us now.”
“I know.” Lynet’s hands still twisted together in her lap. She felt herself to be thirteen years old again, waiting to leave her home for the first time. She was too young for this, too alone, too afraid …
“Be easy, Sister,” Laurel said gently. “We are not wholly without help. I will be among friends as well as enemies. And you … I have brought you help should you need it.”
Laurel moved to the brass-bound casket. On its clasp was the smallest lock Lynet had ever seen. While Lynet marvelled at its delicacy, Laurel chose the smallest, brightest key from the ring at her waist and opened the box. She lifted out a piece of pure white linen.
Inside the cloth lay a round mirror about the size of Laurel’s palm. It was made of glass so pure and smooth it might have been a pool of water framed silver.
“What is it?” asked Lynet in the hushed tones that beauty could inspire. “Where is it from?”
“It was our mother’s.” Laurel handed the precious object to her and Lynet cradled it in both hands. It showed her face more clearly than Lynet had ever seen it before; her hazel eyes sunken into her skull, a glimpse of her brown hair trailing in wisps over her sallow cheeks. The mirror felt was heavier than it looked, and quite cool. The silver frame had been worked into the shape of foaming waves so detailed it seemed strange not to hear the sea.
“Mother gave it to me on her deathbed.” Laurel sighed and smoothed her hair back, clearly steeling herself. “Lynet, there a
re some things that I must tell you now. Things you must believe before you leave on this journey.”
Lynet tore her eyes away from her own reflection. “Believe?”
Laurel nodded. Her mouth had tightened into a hard line, as if determined not to let out one poorly considered word. “You know how it is said we were birthed from the sea?”
“Yes.” It was a jibe, a pleasantry that sprang from Laurel and Colan’s pallid complexions. The proper folk of the Dumnonii lands were dark, like their father had been.
“We were not,” said Laurel. “But our mother was.”
Lynet stared at her, mouth half-open to say this was a poor time to be joking. But she could already see that Laurel was in absolute earnest, and the words drained away from her.
“Our mother, Morwenna, was the daughter of the bucca-gwidden, the White Spirit of the Sea,” Laurel went on. She walked to the shuttered window and laid her hand on it, as if she thought to feel some sympathetic message from the wind outside. “She told me … when our father was a young man, he saw her on the shore, combing her hair in the sun. He fell in love with her in that instant, and came back to the same cove, day after day. She watched him from her place beside her mother, and laughed at the infatuation of a mortal for a being of pure spirit. Then, one day, he did not leave when the sun set. He stayed that night, and the next, and the next. He did not eat, he did not sleep. He did not move, even though he began to waste away. It was watching this devotion that softened her heart toward him. As her kind might sometimes do, she took on mortal flesh and went to him.” Lynet smiled, in soft and sad amazement. “What you hold is her wedding gift from her mother, our grandmother, who is the Sea.”
Her mother, our grandmother, who is the Sea. Lynet stared at her sister, with her translucent skin and her white-gold hair shimmering in the firelight. She thought of Laurel’s detachment, of the witchlights that glowed in her pale eyes when she was angered, or when she spoke with certainty of things she could not have seen.
Lynet swallowed. “Why did you never tell me?”
“Mother told me not to, not until you were to be married … or until danger came.” Laurel eyes were distant, seeing some memory. Perhaps she saw their mother, lying in the great bed, wasting away from the sickness that came on her after the birth of her last child. Laurel would have been no more than eight then. She would have been very young to be hearing these things and making these promises.
No. Not Laurel. Laurel was never young.
“Mother did not want us pulled away from our father by the other half of our blood, she said,” Laurel went on, coming back to the fire. “I think if she had lived it would have been different.” She said this last so softly, Lynet could not tell if this was a thought, or a wish.
Laurel lifted her eyes to meet Lynet’s gaze. “Do you believe what I say?”
Lynet did not answer right away. Then a memory came to her, from the penance she had done for her part in Iseult’s deception and death, the penance that ruined her feet and of a dream of a bright and shining figure that had come to her in the depths of her despair. She had never spoken to anyone of that dream, or of what followed afterwards. She wrapped her fingers around the mirror. Did she believe that moment had been real?
It struck Lynet then how lonely her sister must be. If it were true … if it were true that she … that they … were not fully children of men, but partly of the sea, it was Laurel whom the sea tide pulled most strongly. What would she have been if their mother had lived to teach her its secrets?
Laurel for the sea. She herself for the earth, and Colan suspended between the two.
Oh, Mother what might any of us have been had you lived?
“I … I do not know what to think. I am afraid.” Which is what keeps me silent of what I have seen even now. “Bishop Austell speaks of the fair form devils can take.” Even as she said it, she felt the jolt of her disloyalty. How could she believe her sister had been mothered by anything evil?
But what of Colan? And what of me?
Laurel shook her head. “There are powers in this world that belong to neither God nor the Devil. It is one of our good bishop’s few failings that he cannot bring himself to acknowledge that much.”
“What is this thing Laurel? You surely did not keep a simple mirror secret for so long.”
The corner of Laurel’s mouth twitched upwards, acknowledging Lynet’s attempt at levity. “I only know what our mother told me. She said that within the mirror waits a spirit. If great need came to me, she said, I could look into the mirror and I would have help. She warned me though, not to use it too freely, for there would be a price in body and spirit to be paid. She also said that if I came to a time there was no other recourse, I should throw the mirror into the sea, and the sea itself would bring me aid.”
Lynet stared at the mirror again. She saw herself looking back at her, as plainly as if she were two beings, one facing the other. It was a beautiful thing made with great skill, but it was just a thing. It had no aura or mystique about it.
“Have you ever used it?”
Laurel ducked her head, and to Lynet’s utter astonishment, she saw her sister’s cheeks flush red.
“Once. I was curious, or perhaps I was so angry at our mother for deserting me for God that I believed her a liar. I don’t know. But one night I did cup the mirror in my hands and looked into it long and hard.
“I do not know how to describe what happened next, but I was no longer in where I had been. I was instead in a beautiful garden, such as I had never seen, and there was a man kneeling before me, smiling as if he had never seen anything so wonderful.”
“What then?”
“I was afraid, and I screamed, and it all vanished.” The blush on Laurel’s cheeks deepened. “I never have looked in it since then.”
Lynet swallowed. She could not doubt her sister’s word, but belief in it made her palm itch beneath the smooth silver of the mirror’s frame, and she wanted badly to cross herself.
“It is all the help I can send with you, sister. I’m sorry.”
With these words, Lynet began to tremble again. “I cannot do this, Laurel. Not alone.”
If she had hoped for sympathy, her sister offered none. “You must.”
It was too much to bear. “How can I?” Lynet cried. “I know nothing about what’s happening! I don’t even know my sister or my brother or myself any longer!”
Laurel grasped her by the shoulders, turning her roughly around, stilling her outburst. “You know all you need, sister,” she said firmly. “You are Lynet of Castell Cambryn. You are the daughter of Lord Kenen and Lady Morwenna. You are earth and stone, and true heart, as you have ever been.”
The witchlight burned in her sister’s eyes, lighting the shadows in Lynet’s heart. She saw past it though, and saw that her sister was as frightened, as alone as she was. If she could not be strong for herself, she could not fail Laurel.
Laurel held up Lynet’s autumn brown travelling cloak. “It is time to go.”
Lynet looked at the mirror in her hand, then and carefully slipped it into the purse she wore on her girdle beside her ring of keys. Once it was secured, she permitted her sister to settle the hooded cloak over her shoulders and lace it tight. Side-by-side, they descended the stairs, ignoring the three men who marched down behind them. Together, they crossed through the old tower, and stepped out its open doors.
Peran and Mesek flanked the steps, with their men around them, backed by a loose but watchful line of the men of Cambryn. Lynet did not permit her eyes or thought to dwell on these. She could not let her nerve shake again. A short line of lightly burdened horses waited at the foot of the steps. Lock and Bishop Austell were mounted on the lead horses with the three Trevailian brothers — Cam, Stef and Rory — behind. A chestnut mare with white socks, a white blaze and an empty saddle stamped its foot impatiently, waiting for her.
Beyond the horses, the yard was filled with people. A hundred familiar forms and faces stood shoulder-to
-shoulder; men and women, ancients and crones and children of every age down to babes in arms. As Lynet and Laurel appeared on the threshold, they all knelt together, the men doffing their hoods and all bowing their heads. It was a pure gesture of loyalty and tears pressed hard against Lynet’s eyes.
I will be worthy of this. I swear before God and Mary and Jesus Christ, yes and my father and mother too, I will.
With this vow, a calm descended over her, drying her eyes and lifting her chin. She turned and received Laurel’s parting kiss and walked down the steps. Lock came at once to help her into the saddle. As she gathered the reins into one hand, she lifted the other to the folk of Cambryn, and they in turn raised their voices in a mighty cheer. The vibrant noise made itself the wind at their backs as Lynet and her protectors touched up their horses. Without looking back, they rode out toward the west, the coast and all that was to come.
Once out of sight of Cambryn, Lock set a brisk pace. They rode across the rough. low country as quickly as they could. They followed the river valleys, eschewed the heights when possible, and stopped only to rest the horses and themselves where necessary. The way was frequently steep, and even footpaths were few, but it was well known to them all, and offered up no surprises. The day, although chill, stayed clear, with the stiff wind off the land blowing all the clouds well before them.
All these elements combined allowed them to reach Port Yzack while the last thread of daylight still burned on the horizon. Its cramped and tiny castell backed up against the high cliffs and was watched over jealously by the mottled green bulk of Roscarrock Hill. The great house was not so large as that at Cambryn, being one long, low hall with a slate roof and walls of roughly dressed stone. Still, with Captain Hale there to greet them along side Lord Donyerth and his wife, Lady Cyda, Lynet felt it to be a palace fit for the Holy Roman Emperor.